By now, almost everyone knows of Instagram and it’s power as a social network, especially for businesses. Now, the hardest thing about Instagram is keeping up with their posting sizes and options, since they keep rolling out major features regularly. While it might seem like a small issue, when you have wrong sizes on your Instagram it gives it a less-than-professional look to your brand. If your profile doesn’t look professional, you’re not likely to gain followers or traction on your site so keeping your images top-notch and properly sized will help you grow. This article will go over the various sizes on Instagram and how you can optimize your image for the best reach.

The Instagram post options

We’ll go over the sizing you need for each type, but before we do let’s explain each type of post so you know the difference. When it comes to Instagram, there are a few options you’ll need to keep in mind:

• Main feed posts – These posts are the main ones you see when you land on a profile. They are the typical posts that every brand puts out and the main posts on a profile. The thing you want to keep in mind for these posts are that they’re the first impression for your profile, so keeping these top notch and really clear is important to making sure it catches someone’s eye. These are often the pictures that someone looks at before they determine if they follow you, so you’ll want to make these the best. The main feed posts can come in various sizes, too. We’ll get into that below.
• Carousel pictures – These posts are similar to main feed posts, but instead of one static option, you’re able to put in multiple pictures to scroll through.
• IGTV – IGTV is Instagram’s option for longer videos. Main videos on your feed have to be under a minute to stay there, unless you use the carousel option to upload multiple videos, but IGTV gives people a great option for longer content. If you upload YouTube videos, you’ll want to
• Instagram stories  – To compete with social media sites like Snapchat, Instagram released their own version of live-capture content. On Instagram stories, you can share other people’s public posts, capture yours from your phone, or upload content from your camera roll.

The sizing for each one

Now that we’ve gone over the types of images that Instagram offers for a profile, now we’ll dive into the sizing options you need to keep in mind so you can post images that fit.

Main feed posts

On your feed, you can upload square, landscape, and portrait photos. Depending on the types of photos you upload, you’ll want to use the different options to show your images better. The ideal size is 1080px by 1080px, but any 1:1 size for a square photo works best. If you do wider pictures, you’ll want to upload landscape or taller photos under portrait.

If you uploaded any image over 1080px either way, Instagram might blur your photos because it can’t handle images bigger than that.

Carousel photos

Carousel photos follow the same rules as main feed photos, except you need to keep the sizes consistent because once you select a size, it will make the other photos in the carousel the same size. For example, if you use landscape for your first photo, all your next photos will be forced to that size. It’s important to make sure they’re all the same size if you decide to use carousel.

IGTV

For IGTV, the ideal size is a 9:16 aspect ratio, which is the same size your photo films in. If you use your phone to film a video, the sizing will almost always be perfect. However, you can also upload other standard videos that you film which your phone might crop depending on the size.

Instagram stories

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Jackie Pearce

Jackie is a writer out of Denver, Colorado with a never-ending passion for good TV shows, gadgets, and old-school video games.
Compensation Area of Interest I’ve been writing articles online for over 8 years, but I’d like to start getting into the review world. I love, love, love TV shows and gadgets.